CLOVER'S COLONIAL CHURCHES IN VIRGINIA.
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, HAMPTON.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,
BY REV. JOHN C. M'CABE,
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY REV. LEWIS P. CLOVER
"Regarded as a building what is there to engage our attention! What is it which in this building inspires the veneration and affection it commands? We have mused upon it when its gray walls dully reflected the glory of the noontide sun. We have looked upon it from a neighboring hill when bathed in the pure light of a summer's moon, its lowly walls and tiny towers seemed to stand only as the shell of a larger and wider monument, amidst the memorials of the dead. Look upon it when and where we will, we find our affections yearn towards it; and we contemplate the little parish church with a delight and reverence, that palaces cannot command. Whence then arises this? It arises not from the beauties and ornaments of the building, but from the thoughts and recollections associated with it."—Molesworth.
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.
The region of country in lower Virginia, bordering, or near the James River, from the head of tide water to the sea-board, is rich in the possession of memorials of gone-by days, now turned up from the bosom of the earth, in the shape of arrow-heads, and broken war-hatchets—monuments, fragmentary monuments, of a race of forest-born monarchs: now appealing to the antiquary in the mouldering records of the County Court offices, and now, silently but eloquently, looking out imploringly in the ruins of churches and tombs, which meet the eye of the traveller, as he muses upon the faith and fortunes of generations long departed.